Classroom instruction is useful for providing new information to an individual. It allows the instructor to introduce large amounts of material. It is best used when attached with a more active form of training. This allows the trainee to actually use the training in a realistic setting. Classroom training by itself does not provide for a practical way to evaluate a student’s understanding or ability to use the information in a meaningful way.

Simulation training is very useful in evaluating a person’s abilities, understanding, or skills. It can be used to develop synthetic experience. Synthetic experiences are training experiences that can be used in real world applications as a basis for a response to a specific situation. A good example is the traditional school fire drill. The students gain synthetic experience about what to do in a fire without actually being in a fire. Simulations are not designed to provide large amounts of new knowledge. This is best accomplished by classroom instruction. Combining classroom instruction with a simulation allows your training to provide new information and realistically test the student’s understanding and skills. Once a simulation has been designed it is relatively inexpensive to use and avoids the problems of liability and limits the impact on your daily operations.

The third type of training is a functional exercise or rehearsal. This type of training places the actual tools in the trainee’s hands and puts them in a real world location to employ them. An exercise involves some form of decision making with no preset outcome. A rehearsal is similar but the outcome is already decided. The steps of each part of the rehearsal are predetermined and not subject to disruption. This type of training is useful for trainees to gain a different level of synthetic experience. They are able to see various parts of your plan or procedure in a real world setting. Functional exercises are not useful in introducing large amounts of new information. They are expensive, impact daily operations, and cause significant liability issues.

LECmgt believes the correct approach is designing a training solution that uses a combination of training methods with specific training goals in mind. The first step is to understand exactly what the agency or business intends to accomplish. By clearly understanding these goals it is possible to design training that optimizes the time and effort of participants and insures the final training goals are met. Training is seldom a single step process but an evolution of understanding and renewal. Processes and procedures change and skills and understanding can degrade. LECMgt is prepared to provide a comprehensive training solution that provides a business or government agency a workforce that is current and a capable of meeting the challenges of emergency preparedness and crisis management